State mulls special PWD division for tribal ministry

The Maharashtra government is contemplating forming a special division of the public works department (PWD) dedicated to the tribal development ministry. The division will look after building and maintenance of schools and hostels under the tribal development department, tribal welfare minister Vishnu Savara said, while speaking with select mediapersons on Monday.

“The tribal department gives around Rs 500 crore to the PWD every year for constructing and maintaining buildings of schools and hostels run by the government. We feel that if we have direct control over the work, it would save both time and money,” the minister said and added that the proposal was in the final stage and was likely to come up before the Cabinet sometime this month.

According to the proposal, the new division would have at least one chief engineer, two superintending engineers and four executive engineers, among other staff members, and would look after the work in four administrative divisions.

Until now, each and every department including the PWD has asked the tribal development ministry to transfer funds for implementing schemes of the concerned department in tribal areas.

Mr Savara said, “During the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party regime, funds for the tribal development department were transferred to other departments, which was utilised for non-tribal schemes and in non-tribal areas. However, I have stopped this practice.”

He further said, Rs 5,100 crore was allocated for my department in the budget. Almost all major schemes get 100 per cent allocations, however, some of schemes get 70 per cent of the funds against the actual budgetary provision. Most of the funds are utilised by the PWD in constructing ashram shalas (schools) and hostels for boys and girls from the tribal community. We don’t have control over them and we don’t have the option to accept whatever PWD furnishes as the statement of expenses,” said Mr Savara, adding, “Now we will set up a Tribal Public Works Corporation to control expenses.”